What I find most interesting is the way the man galvanizes investors. He is either hated and vilified or loved and highly respected. There doesn't seem to be any middle ground. But truth be told, there is NO DISPUTING the impact he has had on this business and the multiple world class money managers who have come directly from his tutelage and training. If that isn't an awesome legacy, I don't know what is.
i goggled his name. there was no recent news item. link? "the multiple world class money managers who have come directly from his tutelage and training. " sounds like an urban tale it is interesting that no one on ET has mentioned that they have seen him recently. he is no better and no worse in terms of performance than most hedge fund managers. one word come to mind mediocrity, at best. he may be loved and highly respected. doubtful. he is loved possibly because he is entertaining and charming and there is a herd mentality like rasputin, he is likely a great salesman. respected by the cognoscenti is doubtful.
Maybe he's getting what he wants. To go out in a blaze of glory. However, if a guy who has a statistics degree and PHD from Harvard/UChicago and a finance professor at Berkeley can't hack it, what hope is there for the retail trader trying to calculate "positive expectancy" and all kinds of risk measurement numbers? Do you think you have a better grasp of maths and stats than Niederhoffer?
His core belief is the problem. Although I agree with him as it's how the market really works--- and the belief is that high risk is the only way to obtain outsized returns in the market. High risk means you have the potential to blow up. Without high risk, monster returns are simply not possible. This is market fact.
was it his tutelage and training responsible for their future success or were they there because of his reputation and learned to do the opposite of his actions,particularly in the area of risk management?
Niederhoffer's strategy is pretty basic isn't it. Buy on down days, and sell on up days. Why does he pull out all this irrelevant pseudo articulate material when his strategy is so simple. And when he buys and it keeps going lower, that's when he gets into trouble. Not really different than most retail traders, but I guess Vic uses more leverage than most.